back from 1998-2004, i was chasing a cute chinese pharmacist in Toronto, and got to experience all the fun of the 401, Don Valley, 404, QEW, etc...and let me tell you, the 401 was plenty busy at night too!

We met some friends after an anime convention, and we didnt part until close to 2AM.....and the 401 was still jam-packed with traffic.....reminded me of I-95 in New England

I don't think that Toronto has the money to do it, they spent the rest of it on the subway extension to Vaughn. However it would be a great addition, no matter what type of rail it is (however at this point it should probably be subway).

Ontario has a terrible transportation infrastructure, the only good thing is air, but that's only because airports are locally owned.

Also we are starting to veer of topic.. But since I made it worse, I guess it is acceptable for now.

If you've looked at the 401 on Google Earth (or Maps) recently, you'll notice that the entire length of the route in the Toronto area has been completely redone, and has far greater clarity and resolution than before. This also includes Google Streetview photos.

New view from Google Earth:

And Google Streetview:

Same spot in 1989 (20 years ago):

Its worth a look. The recent improvements to the highway and new road construction is also visible.

^^^ Nice comparison of the 401 there haljackey, Did you get the 1989 photo off vintagekingshighways.com?. I often browse the photos there and have found them quite interesting especially since it shows Ontario's highways before most of them were reconstructed to modern standards.

That's neat hal! Looks like the ramps has less of a sharp curve, signs have completely changed. (In fact the sign on the 1989 picture are almost completely gone now, and are replaced with the newer ones) Same with the last pic, you can see a increase of traffic, but something different this time, traffic density doesn't seem to change much. I'm guessing that the 1989 pic was taken during rushhour and the current one was during low density times.

A lot has changed over 20 years, all of the old "truss" lights were removed from this section and replaced with highmast lighting, signs and median barriers have replaced with the redesigned ones and tallwall barriers respectively. It looks like the only thing that wasn't changed was the Dufferin Road sign bridge.

Nice shots. I'd like to drive on the 401 one day, I'm planning to drive to Ontario next summer (or the summer after, depending)... looks like quite the drive in the GTA, not so much in the eastern part of the province though.

I've seen it occasionally in Europe as well, but certainly not something you'll encounter every day. That said, asphalt can be made in virtually any color. We have red bicycle lanes in the Netherlands.